Caldwell said nothing, just watched Kari leave with those cold, assessing eyes.
In the elevator, Kari leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.She felt dirty after that conversation, like she needed a shower to wash away the residue of Caldwell's worldview.The woman wasn't a monster, exactly.She was something almost worse: a true believer.She genuinely thought she was helping these girls, even as she admitted to targeting the most vulnerable, the most desperate, the ones with no family to protect them.
Girls without ties are easier to relocate.No one holding them back, no one making them feel guilty for leaving.
No one to notice when they disappeared.No one to ask uncomfortable questions when they died.
Kari's phone buzzed with a text from Detective Carter:Need to see you.Found something.My office, one hour.
She headed for her car, grateful for the excuse to leave this gleaming tower and the woman who sat at its heart, hunting for girls to feed into her machine and calling it charity.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Detective Carter's office was a cramped space barely large enough for a desk and two chairs, the walls covered with case files and departmental notices that no one probably read.A dead plant sat on the windowsill, a testament to the demands of the job that left no time for anything as trivial as keeping something alive.She'd cleared a space on the desk and spread out a collection of photographs and documents, arranged in a pattern that Kari recognized immediately.
A murder board, improvised from whatever materials were at hand.
"Close the door," Carter said without looking up."This isn't official yet, and I'd like to keep it that way until I know what we're dealing with."
Kari closed the door and took the chair across from Carter.The detective looked tired, dark circles under her eyes, her hair escaping from its ponytail in wisps that suggested she'd been running her hands through it.She'd been up late, Kari guessed.Maybe all night.Digging into something that wouldn't let her sleep.
"After we talked yesterday, I started pulling files," Carter said."Deaths of young women in the modeling industry over the past five years.Suicides, overdoses, accidents.Anything that might fit the pattern we discussed.I wanted to see if there was something there, or if we were chasing shadows."
"And?"
Carter gestured at the documents spread across her desk."Five deaths.All women between nineteen and twenty-four.All connected to either Elite Vision or Image Management, or both.All ruled suicides or accidental overdoses by responding officers."She met Kari's eyes, and there was something grim in her expression."And all of them had family members who insisted the victims were happy, healthy, and would never have harmed themselves.Family members who tried to get someone to listen, and were told they were in denial, that they didn't understand the pressures of the industry."
Kari leaned forward, her stomach tightening as she studied the photographs.Five faces looked back at her, all young and beautiful, all frozen in time.Amanda Escalante was there, her dark eyes luminous even in a police file photo.
And next to her, a blonde woman Kari didn't recognize.
"Jennifer Blake," Carter said, following Kari's gaze."Twenty-two years old.Died eight months ago in her apartment in West Hollywood.Apparent overdose, prescription pills mixed with alcohol.The paramedic who responded—a colleague of Victor Ruiz—noted in his report that the scene seemed staged.His exact words were 'too clean, too organized.'His concerns were dismissed by the responding officers as the speculation of someone without investigative training."
She tapped the photograph."Jennifer was an Elite Vision model, recruited by Image Management two years before her death.Her mother still calls the department every few weeks, asking if anyone is looking into her daughter's case."
"No one was."
"No one was.Until now."Carter picked up another file, thicker than the first."Destiny Morales.Twenty years old.Died fourteen months ago.Ruled a suicide—she supposedly jumped from her apartment balcony, six floors up.But her roommate said Destiny was terrified of heights, so afraid she wouldn't even go near the window to water the plants on the balcony.And she'd just booked her first national campaign the week before she died.A cosmetics company.She was celebrating, making plans, talking about bringing her mother out from Arizona for a visit."
Kari's throat felt tight.She thought about what it must have been like for Destiny's mother, getting that phone call.Being told her daughter had jumped from a balcony when she knew—knew with a mother's certainty—that her daughter would never have gone near that edge willingly.
"What about the other three?"Kari asked.
Carter walked her through them one by one, her voice flat, but Kari could hear the anger underneath.Brittany Hayes, twenty-three, apparent overdose, found in a motel room two years ago.The typed suicide note had been almost identical to Amanda Escalante's—same formal language, same detached tone.
Megan Park, nineteen, drowned in her bathtub eighteen months ago, supposedly after mixing alcohol and sedatives.Her family said she never drank, never took pills, had been afraid of water since a childhood accident and barely even took showers, preferring to stand in a few inches of water and wash quickly.
And Meiying Tsao, twenty-one, found dead in her car from carbon monoxide poisoning a year ago, the investigation closed within forty-eight hours despite her parents' insistence that she'd never shown any signs of depression, had just gotten engaged, was planning her wedding.
"Five deaths in three years," Kari said when Carter finished."All young models.All with suspicious circumstances.All with families who tried to tell someone something was wrong.And no one connected them until now."
"Different precincts, different detectives, different circumstances on the surface.Each case looked isolated.No one was looking for a pattern, so no one found one."Carter sat back in her chair and pressed her fingers to her temples."But thereisa pattern, Blackhorse.Someone is killing these women and staging it to look like suicide or overdose.Someone who knows enough about crime scenes to fool responding officers, but not enough to fool experienced paramedics who've actually seen what these deaths look like in real life."
Kari said nothing.She just stared at the evidence in front of her, trying to get her mind around the enormity of it.
"The system is set up to dismiss these deaths," Carter continued."Young models, high-pressure industry, history of eating disorders and substance abuse in the profession.It's the perfect cover.Everyone expects these girls to be fragile.Everyone expects some of them to break."
Kari thought about everyone she'd talked to over the past few days.Blake Montgomery with his intense photography and history of complaints.Jessica Vance with her cold calculations about reputation and liability.Vanessa Caldwell, hunting for vulnerable girls in dead-end towns, targeting the ones with no family to ask questions.
